Page 39 of One Thing Leads to a Lover

Perhaps her mother had been right to worry about her.

“I never imagined otherwise, my dear,” her mother said coolly. “Still…” She plucked up an invitation from one of the three piles, peered at it for a moment through her lorgnette, and laid it a different stack. “I should like to meet him.”

Amanda started to suggest that her mother could go up to the schoolroom at any time, knowing it was highly unlikely she would make the effort.

Two thoughts gave her pause. The first was the possibility that her mother might insist on Amanda accompanying her on such a visit. The second was Langley’s imagined reaction to being observed and inspected by his supposed employer.

That mental picture of his disapproving expression, delivered over the top rim of his spectacles, sent the most delicious—and dangerous—quiver through her.

He was here, now, and entirely at her disposal, he had said.

And despite what he’d told her in the garden last night, he wanted to kiss her at least as much as she wanted to be kissed.

She blew out a breath and reached for the little silver bell on the table. “Very well, Mama. I’ll ask him to join us for luncheon.” Luncheon was surely safe. No one disapproved of luncheon.

When Lewis appeared in the doorway, she called for pen and paper. “A note will be less disruptive to lessons,” she reasoned aloud.

It took longer than it ought to have done for her to write out the request, but when she was done, Lewis took the note with a bow and disappeared. Amanda prepared to resume her breakfast in peace.

A few moments later, Lewis returned and held out the folded paper on a tray. She had not expected a reply and did not know what to auger from it. Though she gave Lewis a searching look, his face remained impassive, as any good footman’s should be.

At least as far as her mother was concerned. In the present moment, Amanda would have been glad of a hint.

Cautiously she took up the note and unfolded it. Beneath her carefully worded invitation, a bold masculine hand had scrawled

I never eat luncheon.

Amanda bit her lip to keep a most inappropriate bubble of laughter from escaping.

“What it is, my dear?” Her mother craned her neck slightly and fingered the handle of her lorgnette.

“He begs leave to say that it will not be quite convenient for him to join us at midday today, given the schedule he has already set.”

Amanda picked up her quill, brushed the feather over her lips, smiled to herself. She knew he liked to fancy himself in charge. But perhaps he had forgotten that she was the Countess of Kingston?

She wrote a few words beneath his. “If you would, please, Lewis,” she said, once more extending the folded paper to the footman.

Two could play at this game.

* * * *

For the first hour of the morning, Langley had invited the boys to show him their best work. He’d heard conjugations in three languages, listened to speeches from the great orators, watched them solve equations. Most of what he had observed had only confirmed his first impressions.

Philip was a brash, handsome lad. Impatient, and consequently a little careless. Athletic. He had boasted of his fencing ability and pranced about the schoolroom waving an imagined sword to demonstrate. At a place like Harrow, he would be chosen by his peers to lead them in mischief of all sorts. He would thrive.

Young Kingston was unquestionably the more bookishly inclined of the two and obviously well-prepared academically for school. Still, Langley could guess how the boy might fare there, and why Amanda was worried. Even the teachers could not be counted on to be kind to a lad who was slight of build, delicate of feature, and quicker of tongue than was wise. Away from home, Kingston would have only his title, and perhaps his younger brother, to shield him from the inevitable cruelties to which he would be exposed.

After the boys had had ample opportunity to boast, Langley had taken a page from General Scott and asked them about their most spectacular failures. Mistakes inevitably taught more than successes.

From what they chose to show him then, Langley learned more still. Philip was smarter than he’d first suspected. And Kingston was braver. When the boys eventually had to leave their mother’s care—and it would happen, of course, possibly over their mother’s objection and whether Dulsworthy had his way this autumn or not—Langley began to think that with a little help, they could manage quite well. Both of them.

Yes, there were things he could teach them. Amanda’s lessons had sometimes been more creative than concrete, but on the whole, he was impressed—

Reluctantly impressed?

No, there was nothing reluctant about his admiration for her, for how and what she had taught her sons. Girls and young women were largely kept from the subjects that men self-servingly considered the foundation of “real” knowledge: philosophy, higher mathematics, Latin and Greek. But Amanda had somehow managed to acquire an extraordinary education, and to pass it on to the two young men seated before him.

Langley was not sure it made him feel better to discover that Amanda possessed a fine mind in addition to a fine figure. Certainly he had no business being attracted to either one.